


i picture it, soft

by clamtom



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Angst?, Fluff, M/M, Slight Supernatural Elements, characters with anxiety, chubby kenma, tentative angst tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-09
Updated: 2017-03-09
Packaged: 2018-10-01 12:18:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10189751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clamtom/pseuds/clamtom
Summary: Kenma has one best friend, divorced parents, anxiety and about forty more pounds than he really needs. There is a red-headed sun of a boy in the picture, but Kenma isn't sure what to make of him yet.





	

**Author's Note:**

> first fic since like seventh grade and i'm very excited!!!!!!!!!  
> bit of an intro chapter,,i'm hoping for this to be 4-5 chaps in total with the others being much longer than this one, but we'll see how that goes!! hope u enjoy!!!
> 
> BIGBIG thanks to replicutie on tumblr for betaing!! (have yet to figure out how links work ;u;  
> vaguely based on the girl who could fly by victoria forester??  
> also title is from strawberry blonde-mitski

It’s every little kid’s dream to fly, Kenma included. The proof has faded to pastel colors now, but it still sits tacked to his dad’s fridge with a butterfly magnet: a marker drawing of a stick-boy with a crop of dark brown hair, flying against a bright blue sky. The black lines of his arms are outstretched and his smile is so wide it pokes past the sides of his face.  
Kenma supposes that must be him, though now his hair is bleach blonde and his physique is far from stick-like.  
He feels very far away from that drawing when he looks at it.  
His old therapist told him childhood trauma can cause repressed memories and disconnect from childhood as a teenager or adult, but he doesn’t even know if he’d call his parents’ divorce “trauma.” It seems like something else to him. 

He’s 5”6 and 180 pounds, but he feels heavier, like he’s wearing weighted shoes when he walks around. It feels like something that keeps him pressed painfully against the ground. Flying is the last thing he’d be able to do. On a good day he hardly notices the drawing, opening the fridge for some miscellaneous saran wrapped food to eat as breakfast and then bolting out the door on his way to school without so much as a glance towards it. On a bad day he stands in front of the drawing, hand sweaty on the refrigerator handle, angry and embarrassed for some reason he can’t name  
Kenma throws his backpack down and-- gleeful at the sudden loss of weight-- stretches hard and cracks his back.  
Kuroo makes a disgusted face and gently picks himself over the bag Kenma left in the doorway. “You know I hate that shit,” He says, shuddering.  
Kenma twists to face him with an innocent smile, and starts at cracking his knuckles, one by one.  
Kuroo lunges forward and slaps his hands apart, “Stop.”  
Kenma replies with a shrug and slumps down onto his bed, leaning on the wall beside it. Kuroo sits next to him. It’s been a long time since he’s cared enough about Kenma’s personal space to sit in the office chair by the desk, and Kenma sighs out as Kuroo wriggles an arm behind his head and across his shoulders.  
Today had been a torturously long day at school. Worse than usual. In a best case scenario, Kenma gets through all four periods without a single panic attack and no arm pit stains. Maybe he even makes a little small talk with his classmates without embarrassing himself if he’s really lucky.  
Today was not the best case scenario. He had-- in fact-- two panic attacks, one in PE and one in English.  
The one in PE was just as terrifying as any of his usual panic attacks, but it was at least manageable. He was able to stumble down the stairs to the changing room and get through it without being walked in on. He was already breathing hard from the warm up jog, so the attack sent him into fits of choking and coughing which echoed blaringly down the rows of metal lockers.  
The one in English was smaller, as if his brain recognized how much energy he had lost from the first and was trying to take it easy on him, but it was entirely more noticeable, as he sits nearly dead center in Mr Takeda’s classroom. He can’t remember the details, he remembers Takeda's concerned face leading him out of the classroom, and he distinctly remembers his classmates whispering and snickering behind him.  
The rest of the day had his shoulders tense with the effort of not looking behind him every time his classmates started up a conversation and his energy drained from wondering if they were talking about him.  
“Whatever you’re worrying about,” Kuroo mumbles into his shoulder, “Stop worrying about it.”  
Kenma snorts and turns his head to face Kuroo, “We can’t all be neurotypical, Karen.”  
Kuroo pulls a face and bumps his forehead against Kenma’s, a little too hard to be affectionate, “Do you want me to make you feel better or not, asshole?”  
“Nah. I just wanna… die or whatever.”  
Kuroo smiles, “Well, don’t do that.”  
Kenma rolls his eyes and lifts himself away from Kuroo’s arm, then slides off the bed. There’s a dark spot of sweat on Kuroo’s sleeve where Kenma’s head had been, and Kenma looks away before he can start freaking out about it.  
“Wanna play Wii sports?” He mumbles, wiping self consciously at the back of his neck.  
“Yeah.”  
And that’s what they do.

Kuroo is one of those flying era things. They were next door neighbors, back when Kenma’s parents were married and living in an apartment complex. After the divorce, his dad moved in to Kenma’s grandparents old house in the suburbs, but Kenma and Kuroo still went to the same school so nothing really changed.  
Well, things did change. Just not them.  
They usually hang out at Kenma’s place. It’s shrouded by a general sense of gloom and male ineptitude at housekeeping, but it’s definitely a lot more comfortable than the four room apartment Kuroo shares with his two moms and four little brothers. And there’s a Wii.

Kenma had just begun to dry off from the walk home and now he’s breathing hard and sweating again, struggling to keep up with Kuroo’s formidable Wii Tennis serve. He loses and huffs out a passionate fuck while crouching to catch his breath.  
Kuroo squats down next to him, not even a bit tired; damn his fast metabolism and consistent workout schedule, “No offense, but this is way more fun with Kou.”  
“Sorry I can’t be him.” Kenma says dramatically, rolling his eyes, “I wish I could tear my clothes off with my huge muscles.”  
“He’s a loud-mouth asshole, but,” Kuroo leans backward out of his squat and into a sitting position, eyes going dreamy, “He’s does have huge muscles.”  
“Ew.”

And they go on like that, switching non-committally between Wii Tennis and Wii Bowling and talking about things. Kuroo’s “man crush” on Bokuto Koutaro, who moved into Kenma’s old apartment a couple years ago, Kenma’s record two panic attacks in one day, frogs... what the fuck was even up with them? That economics essay they both have to do but neither of them have started yet, whether Kenma has been eating or sleeping enough, if he’s been thinking about getting into therapy again or gettings meds for his panic attack, and-- in a merciful change of subject-- the volleyball practice match Kuroo had with Fukurodani, their rival school, earlier today.  
“We lost so hard, dude. It was garbage.”  
“Hm…” Kenma feels like a bad friend for not really listening, but he needs to win at least one game of Wii Bowling that isn’t just Kuroo taking pity on him.  
“You should’ve been there, dude.” Kuroo clucks at Kenma’s bowl, which knocks out 10 of the 100 pins and then turns his attention on Kenma, grinning, “Could’ve worn a cute cheerleading outfit. Been moral support.”  
Kenma rolls his eyes and waves his arm to throw his ball again. It rolls into the gutter.  
“I dunno, man. Waking up at 5 to watch a bunch sweaty dudes yell and slap balls isn’t really my thing.”  
“That’s like, exactly, your thing. Also, you suck at bowling.”  
Kenma’s cheeks color, but his pitifully low score and subscription to Men’s Fitness magazine are not offering him any arguments.  
“Shut up.”  
And so on.  
After Kenma is reduced to a mass of concentrated soreness and sweat and Kuroo is just starting to go red in the face, Kenma glances up at the clock.  
6:30.  
“My dad’s not home ‘til like 12,” He wheezes, “So if you want dinner, you’ll have to make it yourself.”  
“Kenma Kozume!” Kuroo’s Wiimote hits him square in the ribs as he clasps his hands to his chest in mock offense, “I am a guest in your house, and this is how you treat me?”  
Kenma rolls his eyes.  
“There’s tofu in the fridge.”  
“Nice.”  
Kuroo catapults over Kenma’s couch and all but runs towards the kitchen. Kenma stumbles to follow him.  
“Take the strap off, idiot!”  
Kenma snorts at how eagerly Kuroo throws open the fridge, given that his prize is a cold, unseasoned packet of tofu, but then the smile drops off his face.  
Because there it is. That fucking drawing, the pale blue stark against the red of his fridge. A little boy in the sky, smiling so hard his face splits in half.  
The anxiety of the day that he thought he buried in the familiar comfort of video games and Tetsuro’s open arms resurfaces with a jolt to his stomach, and he’s crying. Because he really and truly cannot go more than two hours without feeling sorry for himself.

Kenma doesn’t know what it’s even about, really. If he was offered the opportunity to fly, of course he would take it, but it hasn’t been an obsession at that level since second grade. It’s almost muscle memory at this point; have a bad day, look at the drawing, feel things he doesn’t want to feel and can’t explain, cry.

Kuroo is already swiping at Kenma’s tears with a pulled down hoodie sleeve. He looks frustrated, which is not helpful towards Kenma’s mental stability in the slightest.  
“C’mon, man.” Kuroo mutters, “C’mon. What’s all this about?”  
Kenma suddenly wants Kuroo to leave. He wants to be alone in the kitchen, laying on the floor and crying himself out. And when he’s done with that, he wants to look up at the blaring fluorescents on the kitchen ceiling and then glance back at the drawing and have the feelings swell back up, and then start up the process all over again.  
But that would be truly pathetic, and Kuroo’s apartment is four bus stops away. Making him leave now would be cruel.  
So Kenma takes a deep, shaky breath and puts his hand out for the packet of tofu Kuroo abandoned on the counter in favor of tending to him. Kuroo hands it to him, eyebrows furrowed. The Wiimote is still dangling by its strap on his wrist.  
“I think there’s something to season this with in the cabinets.” Kenma manages through the phlegm and self hatred building in the back of his throat.  
Kuroo nods, stepping gingerly out of the way for Kenma to pass. Like if they made contact Kenma would shatter into a thousand pieces.  
________________________  
Soy sauce is the only thing they can find that Kenma knows how to use, so he douses the tofu in it, not even bothering to take it out of the murky fluid pooled in the packet.  
Kenma feels marginally better, despite the fact he needs to keep turning his head to keep the drawing out the corner of his vision. And the fact he’s eating cold tofu out of a plastic container with a spoon.  
Kuroo is giving him space, which has Kenma simultaneously grateful and bored out his mind. They scoop chunks out of the tofu in silence; it’s not exactly a pleasant texture or flavor, but they’re both too hungry and inexperienced with cooking to care much. Plus, it’s something to focus on that isn’t Kenma’s still-puffy eyes and seeming inability to keep the people he loves from being annoyed with him.  
Kenma turns to thinking. He supposes he should get a therapist again, for the panic attacks. Maybe for some other stuff. He thinks about what it would look like, telling a professional that all of his emotional and mental turmoil can be linked to a stick man he drew when he was five.  
He’s suddenly not such a fan of thinking.  
“Hey, Kuroo.”  
Kuroo’s head snaps up.  
Kenma holds up a spoonful of wobbling tofu, eyebrows raised in challenge.  
Kuroo grins and opens his mouth wide to form a goal.  
They flick tofu at each other, and Kenma feels strange and blank, throbbing with some dull emotion like if he were alone he’d be punching the walls. The pack runs out, so Kuroo goes back into the fridge to get a new one. They go through three, entirely wordless.  
Kenma’s black sweater is covered in white smears by the time he heads upstairs to brush his teeth and go to sleep. Kuroo is usually welcome in his bed, but something about Kenma’s aura must have tipped him off to grab a futon out of the closet and set up camp on the floor of the bedroom instead.  
Kuroo mutters a goodnight and Kenma lies awake, staring at the ceiling until his eyes adjust to the dark, wondering what his fucking problem is, and if he’s ever going to get around to fixing it.

**Author's Note:**

> leave a review!! even if it's only criticism!!  
> check me out on tumblr:  
> crabsophie (main)  
> bokutohaiba (haikyuu)


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